Neptune Square the Midheaven—How It Affects your Career

Note: This is an excerpt from a longer exploration of aspects to the Midheaven in my ebook, Outer Planets as Career Indicators, which can be purchased at moonmavenpublications.com.

Aspects to the Midheaven show various ways the career must integrate the needs, urges, and qualities of a particular planet. Any given chart may have several planets aspecting the Midheaven, each adding to or detracting from the complex life task of finding the right vocation.

Let’s look at some aspects to the Midheaven by Neptune, which represents creativity, spirituality, and the desire to serve—much-needed qualities in an economy that lacks compassion and is increasingly driven by the bottom line. Still, these uplifting facets of Neptune—when pursued without wisdom, common sense, and a capacity for coping with reality—can also represent career sabotage through self-deception or becoming the victim/martyr type. Elusive and shape-shifting, Neptune has effects that are hard to describe succinctly, but Neptune can square the Midheaven from four different houses, and each of these squares shows a different sort of tension between matters of that house and worldly success. (The celebrities whose names are in parentheses are examples of these placements found in AstroDataBank.) Squares can represent difficulties, yet the long list of famous folk with outer planet squares to the Midheaven demonstrates that such conflicts are not insurmountable. In fact, people with hard aspects are often more driven to succeed than those with softer aspects, who may find that things come so easily that there is no particular urgency or challenge.

Neptune in the 1st square the Midheaven: The appearance of these people and the dreamy, spacey, impractical, and soft-edged image they project can impede success in a highly competitive corporate field, but serve well in a more artistic one. These people may be glamorous (Geena Davis, Claudia Schiffer), and yet their beauty may place them in the limelight to an uncomfortable degree. The 1st being one of the health houses, Neptune here may represent some physical fragility or challenge that could detract from a physically-demanding career (Stevie Wonder) or an addiction that cannot be ignored (Bill Clinton’s sexual addiction).

Neptune in the 12th square the Midheaven: Neptune’s energy is similar to that of the 12th, so the wish to withdraw or escape from the mundane world can create a private, even reclusive individual, (Harrison Ford) and so a high-focus career is less likely than a quiet, contemplative one. Addictions or unconscious emotions and motivations may sabotage career goals, as may secrets. (With this position, however, gossip columnist Rona Barrett was a huge success ferreting out others’ secrets.) The 12th is well suited for fields involving service, spirituality (Della Reese) and for creative arts like writing and painting that do not require meeting the public. There may also be some sort of cause or ideal that the person puts above material success (1960’s activist, Jerry Rubin).

Neptune in the 7th square the Midheaven: Especially with Neptune in Libra or Scorpio, the partner’s needs are placed before the native’s own goals. Where the partner suffers from an addiction or serious mental or physical illness, codependency can drain energy from the native’s work-related efforts. A partner suffering from low self-esteem can subtly sabotage the native’s career. In other cases, the native may be so overawed by the partner’s gifts that he or she does not feel worthy of a career, becoming a support person instead. Since business partnerships show up in the seventh house as well, this placement is a red warning light, for business partners could prove to be unreliable, deceptive, or dysfunctional in ways that could sabotage the success of the business.

Neptune in the 6th square the Midheaven: Spaced-out, disorganized, inconsistent work habits and escape into daydreams can keep these people from setting and meeting realistic goals. Feeling—and playing—the victim can prevent them from being authorities in their own right; instead they may act like doormats. This placement is superb for service work, but the natives may become compulsive rescuers and martyrs to a cause, thus sacrificing their health. When work doesn’t match their vision of a life purpose (most likely a creative or spiritual one), they might fall ill as a way of forcing a change.

To give another example, one of Pluto’s emotional triggers is the use and abuse of power, and so Pluto in the 7th square the Midheaven might show a romantic or business partner whose need to dominate and control may come to the fore when the native begins to enjoy success. Whatever the aspect to the Midheaven, Plutonians can become enmeshed in relationships that seduce them away from focusing on their life work. For instance, a Pluto opposition to the Midheaven may show that even in adulthood, the person can be involved in murky family relationships—especially those with parents—which sabotage their career progress. They might work in a family business where they are not paid the kind of salary they might get in an outside company, but they are manipulated into staying by guilty trips and the not-so-subtle message that they couldn’t survive alone.

Note: This is an excerpt from a longer exploration of aspects to the Midheaven in my ebook, Outer Planets as Career Indicators, which can be purchased at moonmavenpublications.com. Download a sampler here:Sampler–2015 OPIL1

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Responses

Happy New Year!

Yes that above interpretation of Neptune in the 12th house square the MC is right on. I love solitude in Nature. I am at home in the public as well, but even in public I maintain privacy…Neptune sextile Pluto in Leo and the 1oth house. Neptune quintile the Venus/ Saturn conjunction just within 10 degrees of the MC. I am an Artist Painter and once wrote a column, ” Voice from the Boundary Waters””.

Just came here from your MC post, e-mail alert.
My North node in Cancer is just 3 degrees from the MC and squares Neptune as well. My spiritual/ occult nature finds no outlet in today s materialistic society. However I do Women s Medicine talks and the 4 Directions Medicine Wheel talks and am sometimes called upon to address local mental health groups, colleges etc. I have combined these with Women s Canoe / camping trips in the past.
On another note , I tried replying to an email from Sky writer but could not get through on the web page mentioned and I cannot find my password either. Please help if you can.. YES I would love a Free copy of your book on the Moon, Mothers and Daughters!

I love your blogs here, they are always fun and make you think. Thanks.

Oh my! You just wrote my vocational story! I have Neptune in the 1st square Midheaven and you are exactly right. I come across as “spiritually pure” and “dreamy”. Translation: gullible. My bosses either exploit me or are physically absent, which means others try to step in and be my authority figures.

Your example for Pluto in the 7th square Midheaven fit me, too. But I have Pluto in Libra in the 10th house, which is similar in concept. My relationships always impede my success. Just when I’m about to get moving in my career from making a beneficial connection, here comes a “friend” to steal my opportunity or say something bad about me that others believe because they’re my “friend” and it fills in the blanks of my “mystery” (Neptune in the 1st square Midheaven). I am currently dealing with this online and offline and have no idea how to fix it.

My Pluto squares my Cancer Sun in the 8th. I’ve worked for BOTH of my parents in family businesses throughout my teen years and was never paid a salary. Even though I was working 16 hr. days during the summer in my dad’s law firm, he told me that my salary was “eating under a roof”.

Any time I feel like I’m in an exploitive situation at work, I escape…and have to start all over again somewhere else.

I think that maybe this aspect is strengthened doubly with me since my MC is in Pisces and Neptune is in Sagittarius. I think, in theory,it gives me a more Piscean type personality because of the doubled Pisces/Neptune influence.

So, I wonder if I even have a chance in the area of career and/or developing my aspirations at all. ???

Neptune Sagittarius in the 6th square the Midheaven Pisces

I also have Neptune quindecile(165) Ascendant and Jupiter and Neptune Parallel Mars and Mercury, which I’m guessing doesn’t help any.

Much of what you wrote is true,but this applies to my life in general, not just my work…. I’m disorganized(though I can GET organized), inconsistent in my work habits(I don’t mean to be though) I daydream alot(to the point that I forget that I’m daydreaming), I’ve been the rescuer and made sacrifices for people, I don’t think that I’ve fallen ill on purpose to force a change, but I’ve fallen ill because of a work environment that I couldn’t handle physically and/or emotionally.

Neptune Conjunct the Midheaven is a difficult aspect because Neptune does not like to be in the limelight. I have Neptune conjunt my Sagittarian Midheaven and form a midpoint between my Midheaven and my early Capricorn sun. I also have Jupiter widely conjunct my Mideheaven in Sagittarius in the 9th house. My Leo moon widely trines my early Capricorn Sun, Trine my Neptune, Midheaven and Jupiter in Sagittarius! Thank god I have the Sun and Mercury in Capricorn, as Capricorn/Saturnian energies are the antehesis (opposite) to both the Moon and Neptune. Note I have Mercury in Capricorn quinitling my Late Pisces Ascendant and Gemini North North Node in the 3rd! This makes me quite elequent with words, and gives me the ability to pick up the essence of situations quickly, not to mention potential qualities of my future mate (Virgo in the 7th,) ruled by Mercury rules partnerships, marriage and the ‘shadow self’. Most women I’m attracted to either have a strong dose of Virgo or Capricorn in their charts! Now back to Neptune..! It is my chart ruler, on the midheaven and aspects my Moon, Sun and Jupiter in powerful ways. I was bullied and victimisted as a child by my Father and by peers at school. For being quirky, eccentric,wise and perceptive beyond my years (Sun in Cap in the 10th, Sat in Scorp in the 8th and ASC in Pisces). If any one has read the book by Roald Dahl, Matilda,I was a young male version of that character. I was intelligent, quirky and a sympathetic character. At age 10 I had a mindset of an Adult, not to mention an ability to see ‘ahead’. I used to criticise my Parents at an early age. My Father did not like it and my Mother adored it. I always wanted to either be a Nurse, Teacher, Geologist or a Doctor. I became a teacher (Elementary School). It took me until my late 20′s to achieve my goal as a teacher. Life was tough in my early to mid twenties. I wanted to be either an Archaologist or Historian. My Father was deeply disapointed with my dreams and my Mother thought it was ‘airy fairy’. I worked hard in numerous jobs as my Father did not believe in subsising his children after 18 years of age. I’m not resentful of the fact, infact it has made me a stronger person. I had Saturn Semisquadrate my Midheaven, it gave me a dose of both reality, work ethic and indecicion. It took me a while, but after completing my Bachelor of Arts at University majoring in History, Politics and minors in Australian Studies/International Relations, I decided to study a Graduate Diploma of Teaching. I worked extremly hard at University plus I worked 25-35 hrs a week with casual work. In Neptunian ruled Petrol/Gas Stations. Just because you have Neptune conjunct the midheaven, doesn’t necessarily mean that all of your knowledge is impractical,like a guru from Timbuk Tu! It depends on the signs and aspects involved with your midheaven. Yes I’m spiritusl, but I’m also realistic and incredibly practical.
Signified by my Capricorn Sun/Mercury in the tenth with Saturn Semisquare my Sun and Semisquadrate my midheaven! So if Neptune is on the midheaven find out the sign and aspects to other Planets, to help paint an accurate picture.

Brenton, I know you commented on this a long time ago, but I just wanted to say that I think we are *almost* chart twins! I was reading your description above and I was like, “Hmmm, this all sounds strangely familiar!”

If you still read this, I’d love to chat more about our chart similarities. It’s not everyday you find someone (living) with SO many of the same placements! Let’s compare notes! My email address is kristigail@hotmail.com

Neptune 29 Libra conjunct 26 Ascendant, square Midheaven 29 degrees Cancer….hmmm…….getting lots of benefit from B12 Hydroxocobalamin injections – frequent, like every other day…..helping my neuro issues immensely and helping me to focus better at work….hmmm…..also coming up on 2nd Saturn return…..yes, I have literally lived in the prison of fog brain most of my life, and have just about turned the spiritual world upside down looking for solutions…..but so very thankful that I now have the knowledge that I do, elsewise, I never would have searched these things out….God is good….!!!!